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Thursday, December 19, 2013

Brigadier General George G. Meade to Margaretta Sergeant Meade, May 10, 1862

CAMP NEAR
FREDERICKSBURG, May 10, 1862.

The recent act of Congress in reference to command of troops
is, I understand, construed by the Secretary of War into an entire destruction
of rank in the army. It is now decided that the Secretary can put any officer
wherever he pleases, over the heads of his seniors, and no one has the right,
or will be permitted, to protest or contest this right. Ord has been made a
major general for his Dranesville fight, and if McCall is superseded, I think
it probable Ord will be given this division. I think the promotion of Ord just
and deserved; for if I had had the good luck to have been in command at
Dranesville, I should have claimed the benefit of it. War is a game of chance,
and besides the chances of service, the accidents and luck of the field, in our
army, an officer has to run the chances of having his political friends in
power, or able to work for him. First we had Cameron, Scott (General), with
Thomas (adjutant general) and McDowell, who ruled the roost, distributed
appointments and favors. Bull Run put Scott's and McDowell's noses out of
joint, and brought in McClellan. Then Stanton took Cameron's place, fell out
with McClellan, whose nose was therefore put out of joint, and now McDowell
again turns up, and so it goes on from one to another. A poor devil like
myself, with little merit and no friends, has to stand aside and see others go
ahead. Upon the whole, however, I have done pretty well, and ought not to
complain.

Of course you have exulted over McClellan's successful
dislodgment of the enemy at Yorktown and his brilliant pursuit of and defeat of
them at Williamsburg. To-day we hear his gunboats have gone up the James River,
and we now look forward to his beating them back from the Chickahominy and
forcing them to fight, either at Richmond, or to abandon that place and
Virginia. His progress has been so rapid that it seems useless for us to do any
more work on the railroad on this line, and I look daily for orders for our
column to take shipping at Acquia Creek and go down to West Point to reinforce
McClellan. There is where we ought always to have been, and there is where we
ought now to go. As it is, we are hard at work rebuilding the railroad to this
point, and will have to do it all the way hence to Richmond, fifty-five miles.
They have a force in our front some twelve miles off, and say they are going to
fight us; but McClellan's operations will stop all that, and they will be out
of our way before we can get at them.

SOURCE: George Meade, The Life and Letters of George
Gordon Meade, Vol. 1, p. 265-6